It's here - our first completed renovation project at our new home!
We chose the tiny en suite bath to our master bedroom because we figured it was a smaller project to get our feet wet. Plus, with the extra bedrooms, it was easy to set up sleeping arrangements in other rooms while we completed this bathroom and the adjoining bedroom.
I last shared that we had completed the tile back in August of last year, and we "finished" the major components of the bath soon after that. As I mentioned in my last post, we were waiting on the windows and trim to finally call this room complete.
It's certainly come a long way from when we bought the house, 1 1/2 years ago.
During our first walk-thru I remember talking about vague ideas for different rooms in the house to Mike, but when we saw this bathroom, we both said the first thing we would do is remove that wall to the shower. We knew it would make all the difference to open this room up and make the small footprint seem bigger.
Having showered in both states of the room, I can attest that it no longer feels like a college dorm room shower and it's actually a space that I want to take my time in!
I designed everything and Mike installed it all, everything except the glass installation, which we hired out. We didn't want to mess with that one, and we have no regrets! While the door is almost the same size as it was before - maybe an inch or two bigger, it can swing both ways so it feels less awkward getting into the shower.
As for the design elements, I went with SW Spare White (SW6203 - in ProMar 200 Egg Shell) on the walls. It's the same color I used in our last home for Archer's original nursery. Spare White is a creamy white, with a cool undertone. All the photos read a little green because of the trees outside and the tint to the shower glass. Any white would have worked in here because of the simple color palette, but I loved Spare White in our last house so I was happy to use it again here.
We tried to get a custom vanity made, but no one would return calls/emails. I ended up convincing Mike to use the Ikea GODMORGON vanity with Semihandmade drawer fronts. Mike always rolls his eyes when I suggest Ikea, but then is always pleasantly surprised when it turns out great! The space for a vanity was less than 2', so the GODMORGON was perfect for the drawers I wanted and maximizing the space.
Mike was able to get a small solid surface counter top made from a fabricator on one of his jobs. I told them the look I wanted and they used what they had on hand. I believe it ended up being Corian Ash Concrete, and with the 2" edge, it looks like real concrete without the porosity issues.
The rest of the accessories came out of necessity. This mirror was a splurge, but it was part of my vision for the room since the beginning so it was worth it to me. It looks similar to a certain high-end mirror, but it's about half the cost, so this is actually a really good price.
We went back and forth on the towel bar because Mike really wanted a towel warmer. I liked the idea, but I didn't like the cord and additional cost. Because this room is so small we really only had the area above the toilet to put it, so we compromised and got this towel rack to maximize the space and it holds both our bath and hand towels.
I had specific requirements for the light over the vanity and while this one from West Elm fit all of them (must be opaque glass/milk glass, two bulbs, brass, and down-facing light), plus was less than $80 on sale. I'm not in love with the "antique brass". It's very gold to me, but I've stopped noticing after a while. If I ever run out of projects to do (HA!) I could always try to use some Rub 'n Buff to tone down the brassiness.
I mentioned in a previous post a couple months ago that we installed heated flooring. We used the same controls/system that we used in our last home in the basement bathroom. It wasn't as necessary here as it was in our previous bathroom, but it's a nice treat for our master bath.
Another way we went a little extra is adding this bidet seat to our new toilet. We knew we wanted to splurge on a bidet and I started by looking at the full Toto experience, but realized we didn't need a spaceship toilet. Heated seats, front and back spray, plus heated water was enough for us. We love our seat and while we have simple bidet attachments on the rest of the toilets in the house, this feels like a little luxury in our private bathroom.
I forgot to take a better picture of the toilet, but the seat and lid are extra big, but the extra features are worth the less streamlined look.
We didn't add any window treatments because we live in the woods, and this room overlooks our barn. We would have been completely fine, but I was still a little nervous (what if I was getting into the shower at night and our neighbor happened to be at the very edge of their property corner and looked just at the right angle 🙄) so I added some frosted window film to the bottom 2/3rds of the bottom window, after taking these photos. Mike rolled his eyes, but now I feel a little more covered, you know, if a deer happens to walk by.
The other upgrade we made was to the pocket door. We're slowly switching out all the old doors, and this pocket door was no exception. We added soft close stoppers on the open and close motions, and it is just short of life changing! We have another pocket door downstairs in the powder bath that we haven't touched yet, and we can't wait to upgrade that one too.
Overall, I'm really happy with how this bathroom came together! I love the modern and simple palette, and I'm glad we focused on our bath and bedroom first so we get to enjoy it longer!
